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| 09/11/2000 |
| INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON ART, ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN EDUCATION IN THE NEW MILLENIUM |
Extract from Keynote Speech at the INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON ART, ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN EDUCATION IN THE NEW MILLENIUM, NATIONAL COLLEGE OF ARTS, LAHORE, 9 NOVEMBER 2000. The full text is published in The Bark of a Pen.]
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| I have been twice-blessed by the National College of Arts during the past fortnight. Twelve days ago, on 28th of October, I was honoured with the award of a Fellowship of this College. It was both unexpected and, according to my closest enemies, undeserved. The second blessing has been to be the Keynote Speaker today at your International Seminar on Art, Architecture and Design Education in the New Millenium. |
| In my opinion, there could not have been a more appropriate timing for such a seminar. Not only is the National College of Arts observing the true millenium which should begin on 31 December 2000, and not - television-hype notwithstanding - on 31 December 1999, but I believe the College is positioning itself in the right direction, facing the future rather than looking over its shoulder towards its past. |
| Any educational institution which could boast, as the NCA can, of a hundred and twenty-five old history could be forgiven for glancing backwards. It is understandable. At such an age, one can afford a moment of retrospection, of nostalgia even - to savour triumphs, to assess gains, to shrug off failures, and to write off losses. |
| A hundred and twenty-five years is a long time, as those of us nearing that august age realise only too well. To give you a feel of that measure, let me remind you that when the founding fathers established the Mayo School of Arts in these very premises in 1875, Queen Victoria was more than midway through her long reign. By 1875, she had been on the throne 38 years and had yet another 26 more years to go. Her Prime Minister was Benjamin Disraeli and he was still undecided whether, and if so when, to propose her declaration as Queen-Empress of India. He did so in 1877, when your College was just two years old. |
| In 1875, Rudyard Kipling was a myopic ten-year old, studying unhappily in England, separated from his parents who were living in Lahore. Kipling's father, J. Lockwood Kipling, as many of you know, was the first Principal of the Mayo School of Arts here and simultaneously also Curator of the adjacent Museum. The idea behind this joint responsibility was to encourage the art-school students, though this stimulating proximity, to use the exhibits in the museum, like the works of Old Masters or plaster casts of Classical sculpture were used in the West, as imitable examples of good art and design. |
| In time, the Mayo School of Arts detached itself from this Siamese twin linkage with the Museum, and became independent. It no longer needed the museum as the spring-source of its inspiration. It had outgrown that neighbourly point of origin. Like some great river replenished from different streams and sources, it developed its own momentum, gushing into Society, that limitless ocean into which its talent flowed, and was absorbed. |
| Over the past one century and quarter, your institution has had more than a number of notable Principals. Their names - first J. Lockwood Kipling, after him Percy Brown, and into the 20th century, Professor Shakir Ali and his worthy Pakistani successors - read like a bibliography of the art of the sub-continent. Their contribution has been incalculable, and by the same token their influence immeasurable, for who can gauge the true impact of a good teacher? Wasn't it Henry Adams who wrote: `A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.' |
| Although I myself have taught Accounting - my own professional subject - at a MBA level, and although I have lectured and written books on miniature painting, the work of British artists in the subcontinent, and on cartography, I have never taught Art as a subject. I wish I had, for then I might have learned more about it. I would have understood better the origins of much of what we have assimilated and what we now take for granted. I would have appreciated better the integrity of our own cultural heritage... |
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| 09 November 2000 |
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